Human beings like to do a little research before they buy something. We’ve all been there at some point or another. In fact, more than 80% of people will poke around online before making a substantial purchase. It’s second nature to see something, take five minutes to Google it and read about it, then decide whether or not to buy.

Because the bulk of those searches happen on Google, taking advantage of the vast reach of their ad platform is just good business. It’s important to bolster organic traffic with paid search traffic, which is where pay per click marketing (PPC marketing) comes into play.

You’re reading an article on an SEO and web design company’s blog, so you likely know a thing or two about pay per click marketing, but some of the more granular metrics can be difficult to grasp. Not so much knowing what they mean as knowing why they’re important. But, whether it’s Google PPC, Facebook PPC, or another one altogether, when you’re paying to have your business on an ad platform, you need to be sure your investment is worth it. These are some foundational metrics to focus on.

Clicks: Seems too simple, right? Wrong. You’re paying for ads to be displayed to potential customers. The first line of data you need is to know whether or not people are actually clicking on them. A lot enters into consumer interest and it’s your job to get them to click on your ads. Everything starts here.

Conversions: Generally, the goal of pay per click marketing is to get potential consumers to click on your ad and buy, subscribe, sign up for, or otherwise interact with your product in a way that you’ve determined to be a conversion. Getting conversions means that your ads are doing their job. But, you don’t just want a handful of conversions, right? You want as many as possible.

Conversion Rate: Where clicks are the top of the funnel and conversions are the very bottom, conversion rate tells the story of what goes on in between. Say 1,000 people clicked on your ad and from those 1,000 clicks you got 150 conversions. Dividing those conversions by interactions (150/1,000) shows a conversion rate of 15%. Comparing conversion rates between different ads can potentially reveal how persuasive your ads are to potential consumers, allowing you to tweak, pause, or replicate them accordingly.

Remember that each business may need to prioritize certain metrics over others because they don’t all have the same pay per click marketing goals. Before blindly looking into metrics, make sure you have a clearly defined goal. Otherwise, you’ll be looking at a wall of data without direction. This is not a place you want to be.

There are more metrics to pay per click marketing than can be covered in one blog (let alone hundreds), but these are some of the boilerplate ones that should begin to guide your pay per click management decision making. We’re here to help, too. If you’re looking for guidance in the world of marketing, be PPC, SEO, or web design, Studio98 has your back. Drop us a line, we’d love to help.